


Where All Compulsions Meet

by MFLuder



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Dark Past, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jason Todd is Red Hood, M/M, Mystery, POV Alternating, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Pre-Slash, Secrets, Sexuality Crisis, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25908862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder
Summary: Nightwing and Red Hood are on a mission that takes them deep into Arkham Asylum. Their fate will bring them deeper even still: into their past, their secrets, and their psyches.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 21
Kudos: 91
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	1. The Passion Play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goddessofpainandagony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddessofpainandagony/gifts).



> This got away from me a bit; I tried to take the core idea and then build from there, so I hope it ends up satisfying some components of/the spirit of the prompt. 
> 
> Much of the inspiration for this came from _Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on A Serious Earth_. There's a whole lot of allegory, comic references, comics-based suppositions, general intrigue and weird, comics-based logic.
> 
> Thank you to my cheerleader [Shenanigans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/Shenanigans) for their support. Without them, I might just have given up entirely. (To be seen if I should have.)
> 
> Finally, the following is a list of soundtracks for the mood of this piece. I used these while writing.  
> [Nocturnal Animals](https://youtu.be/bW8IKo5jR9M)  
> [Dark fantasy](https://youtu.be/jEeL3gbNDZ8)  
> [Dark gothic](https://youtu.be/MwToTZc9qOk)

_“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.  
“You must be,” said the Cat, “Or you wouldn’t have come here.”_  
-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

“Christ, ‘Wing. Give a guy some room,” Jason hisses. It sounds hollow and sharp, like metal scraping against metal. 

“Move forward then, Hood,” he mutters in return. Jason jumped into the tunnel first, the sound of his boots a heavy thud on the packed dirt; Dick had followed with one last glance at the ominous harvest moon overhead. It’s not his fault Jason didn’t take a step forward and Dick is practically draped over his back. Jason shrugs him off and Dick steps back at the same time, light on his toes.

Dick turns on the night vision element of his mask and Jason looms large and green in front of him. He starts moving, arms raised, gun lifted, looking more like a cop than Dick thinks he ever has. Jason’s the kind of man Hollywood would cast in an action thriller.

The tunnel is left over from the slave trade in Gotham. Later, it was used as a means to help slaves escape further north into New York and Vermont and Maine. The tunnel grew in that time, all the way up to the Canadian border. Less than a mile from the asylum, though, there’s been a cave-in. Most people don’t remember the original tunnel extended down into Gotham.

Arkham built his asylum on top of it; even Bruce isn’t sure if the man meant to or not as it did not used to connect to the building. But with a little Bat-ingenuity, B built his own way in.

It’s worrying he hasn’t used it to escape. That’s why Dick and Jason are both here: something went wrong tonight. Batman went in and hasn’t come out.

“I told you to leave that at home.” Dick chucks his chin at the Beretta.

“Since when do I ever listen to you?” Jason snorts.

“You know B will be pissed if you go in raging with that thing.”

“Kneecaps, ‘Wing. ‘Sides, I won’t let Bats go. And if it takes blowing the Joker’s head off to get him back, I can live with that. And he’ll _live_ with it, too.”

“You know the Joker’s not here right now.”

“Sure do,” Jason smiles, predatory. Dick can’t physically see it, helmet keeping Hood’s face a blank canvas, but he knows Jason well enough by now to detect it in his voice, in the way he holds his body. “I’ll accept Two-Face as a consolation prize.”

Dick rolls his eyes. When Jason gets like this, there’s no out-bantering him. But Dick’s also learned in more recent years, that Jason’s words don’t always mean he’ll follow through. Not in a breaks-his-promises way, but in the way that means he boasts about killing but still has yet to do so since he was nineteen and freshly back from his around-the-world training stint.

He follows behind Jason, relying on senses other than sight mostly, trusting him to lead the way. The air in the tunnel is stagnant, wet. It smells like dirt and the things that crawl in the muck. Occasionally, there’s a chunk of wood sticking out from the tunnel structure: a piece that’s fallen or a joint brace, or a slat that, caked in mud and a century of dirt is barely recognizable, but still holds the weight of the ground above.

He feels rather than sees the tenseness in Jason’s shoulders grow. He’s hunched, tightly wound, a stiffness to his walk that hadn’t been there a moment ago, before Dick closed the grated entrance to the tunnel. Dick reaches out, daring, and lays his hand on one shoulder, keeping it light and barely felt.

“I’m fine,” the mechanical voice says, somehow holding the gruffness Dick knows is laced in Jason’s actual voice. Still, he doesn’t shake Dick’s hand off.

They proceed like that until they reach the hidden door Batman installed. Access is granted via retinal scan, so Jason takes off his hood, leaving Dick to stare at the sweaty tendrils of hair that are starting to curl against the back of his neck. Dick removes his hand from Jason, knowing that the trick with this door is never knowing what’s on the other side.

All of the Arkham patients could be waiting. 

Jason replaces his helmet and steps back as the door gives a quiet click. He’s grabbed his second gun, ready to take out anyone who may be on the other side. The door slides across the dirt smoothly and yet, in the dark tunnel, with anticipation holding them both alert, it seems to echo and occupy the space between one breath and the next. It opens to nothing but a small peep – which turns out to be a mouse that had been sniffing along its edge, perhaps sensing an air current.

Dick chuckles, small and relieved. Jason is still tense beside him, but he reholsters one of the guns.

“Don’t get complacent,” Jason says.

Dick doesn’t respond, just rolls his eyes as the door clicks closed behind them.

Here, the tunnel smells worse. Ironic as they’re actually getting further from the swamplands, but it smells _green_ here. Like the moss covering the dirt, the occasional droplets of water that slide down the muddy walls. It smells like decay. They hurry along.

Eventually, there’s a fork. One side goes out to the harbor, where the slave traders would dock. The other becomes a dryer tunnel again and connects to the huge house.

Together, they take the left, moving in sync. Eventually, they reach another grate. Jason steps back and Dick pulls out a small screwdriver from his hidden pockets. Within thirty seconds, Jason is giving him a lift and he pops up out of the tunnel into an equally dank corner of the asylum. No one seems to be around, so he removes the grate entirely, reaching down to give Hood a hand. He ignores the rust-colored substances on the gray metal.

Jason’s heavy, but once his arms make it through, he hoists himself up in one fluid move that is all Batman-trained. He lands surprisingly light on his feet. They make eye contact – as much as they can between the helmet and the white lenses. They know each other’s moves enough in the field to express _side-by-side then back-to-back_.

Dick ducks to close up behind them as Jason takes point. They make it about fifteen seconds before Dick sees the gas. He opens his mouth to warn Jason, a soft noise escaping – but it’s too late.


	2. Nocturnal Animals

Dick wakes up.

He wakes to a distorted image of Jason’s face peering at him, worry evident on his features.

“'Wing, oh thank God. Yeah ‘Wing, that’s it, come back. Come back to me. That’s it. Breathe.”

That’s when he realizes Jason’s helmet is next to his head with the nose and mouthpiece extended, covering Dick’s face. Jason is giving him oxygen. But that means—

He shoves it off, hands clumsy with lingering fogginess, fighting Jason all the way. He gets it off, desperate to speak. “Hood, what are you doing?” he rasps.

Fuck, his throat is sore, and his voice sounds raw.

“Trying to save your life, you stubborn prick,” Jason says, attempting to shove the rebreather back on Dick’s face.

“What about you? The gas—?”

“I’m fine,” he snaps. “You’re the one who was dumb enough to not bring a rebreather and got hit, full-force.”

“What was it?” he asks, struggling to sit up until Jason helps and pulls him up against the wall. Dick rests, half in Jason’s lap, half supported by the cold brick. “The gas? And why haven’t they captured us yet?”

Jason gives up and takes his helmet back, putting it back on his head. He leaves the mic off though and his voice comes out normal, if tinny. “I don’t know. To either question. I wonder if it’s something related to Batman. Maybe the warden or GCPD let loose something, to try to contain a breakout or hostage situation.”

Dick nods, feeling tired.

“How are you doing?” Jason asks. Even though he can’t see his face anymore, Dick still picks up the note of worry he’s trying to quash.

“Mm,” he hums, letting himself take stock of his body: tingly extremities, tiredness, and a lingering fog in his brain causing him to feel slow, almost languid. Jason’s lap feels nice. “I think I’m alright. Mostly still a little fuzzy. I wonder if it was a sleeping gas. What happened to you?”

Jason tilts his head toward Dick. “Nothing. My helmet was sealed. _Some_ of us were prepared, ‘Wing. I just heard you and then you dropped. Real graceful.”

“Nothing? You don’t feel anything now? After taking off your—” He waves his hand vaguely, tilting further into Jason’s body. The other man’s arm comes up around his shoulders. His leather jacket seems to encase Dick, letting off a subtle whiff of warm patchouli and cigarette smoke. At least his sense of smell is back.

“Helmet,” Jason snaps. “No, ‘Wing. I’m fine. You, though…I should probably take you back out. Rescue B myself.”

“No,” Dick says, one hand ineffectually pawing at Jason’s chest armor. The red bat shines in the limited light of the deserted corridor. He forces his brain to focus and his limbs to move under his direction – he sits up on his own accord, pulling away from Jason who seems oddly reluctant to let him go, hands lingering as though to help. “I won’t let you fight Arkham on your own. We came as a team and we’ll leave as a team.”

“Alright, big bird. Whatever you say.”

Dick can hear the smile under Jason’s words. He uses the wall to support himself as he gets back on his feet. Beside him, Jason stands without aid or creak to his bones. Dick glares at the other man, a little jealous as his bad knee wobbles once. He puts his leg down after a quick shake and there – this time he can stand on his own and without his knee giving out. He feels a little clearer of mind, too.

“You good?” Jason asks, his modulator back on. He sounds like a terminator and Dick forces the chuckle back inside himself. 

“Peachy,” he responds, knowing, _knowing_ the other man is raising his eyebrows under the helmet. “Let’s go save Bats.”

*

Jason wakes up, instantly; unconscious to conscious in one split moment. He looks around and notes the gas is gone. His helmet’s analytics suggest it was a simple sleeping gas. Maybe they triggered a new alarm, meant to quell patients who tried to dig their way out via the basement?

They. Dick.

Jason looks over and sees his partner on this mission still passed out, limbs askew except the one that’s slung over Jason’s chest. In any other circumstance, Jason would be delighted at the implied intimacy, but right now, Dick’s ashen face is more of a concern.

Jason practically tears off his helmet, his white bangs falling damp into his eyes. He scrubs his hair back feeling the cowlicks left from the helmet. He extends the small rebreather and, wincing, places it over Dick’s nose and mouth. He flips a tiny switch that circulates oxygen through the attachment and silently thanks Roy for all the recent upgrades – even if the redhead took the helmet without asking.

He supposes, that’s a best friend’s prerogative.

He watches the hall, occasionally glancing down at Dick. So far, no one’s come bearing down on them, but the triggering of the gas had to have alerted someone, right? Either the warden or the GCPD; or worse, the inmates themselves – if one of them had set up the gas. Maybe Joker or Strange has figured out Bats’ little back door and set up a trap for the next time.

Grumpily, Jason has to admit Batman would have been more prepared. It’s rare he doesn’t automatically have his rebreather on him, after one too many incidents with Scarecrow and Ivy in his early days.

God, what were they thinking? He stares down at Dick’s face, visually tracing over his thick eyebrows and eyelashes, to his broad nose, down to his wide-set lips that look pale and almost blue. His dark hair fans out on the wooden floor beneath them. Jason rests his thumb on Dick’s cheekbone - he tells himself it’s just to check on him. Dick still doesn’t stir. 

Jason does a quick pat down, keeping it clinical. He finds a few hidden pockets including the one that holds the screwdriver Dick pulled out earlier, part of a glorified swiss army knife practically. There’s one small vial of antitoxin in a shatterproof bottle; nothing of use to combat the gas’s effect, especially since he doesn’t know exactly what it was. Dick’s suit can’t hide anything bigger than a key and he doesn’t even wear a utility belt. _Of course_ Dick wouldn’t have a rebreather – not unless he’d been expecting such an attack. The man cared too much about aesthetics, about his long lean lines and the ability to fly without anything weighing him down, but then—

Jason bites the skin around his thumbnail. He looks down the dark hallway once more. Still no one. Strange. He does notice the gun he’d been holding before the gas attack though, scattered on the other half of the hall, and he reaches over Dick’s body to claim it back. He reholsters it along his thigh, but moves to a crouch so it’s right next to him as he maintains the oxygen flow. 

He knows the Joker isn’t in Arkham right now, but any number of others could be lurking past the next set of doors. He hates scrubbing a mission like this, but…

Once Dick’s breathing is back to normal, his heart rate a steady pulse instead of terrifyingly fast, Jason takes back his helmet and pulls up his call system. He hates doing this, fuck the cops, but while Jason is inclined to finish the mission on his own, he’s not going to leave Dick lying there for Two-Face or someone else to stumble across and torture. He can’t be sure the back door isn’t compromised and he’s not willing to risk Nightwing. Bruce would fucking kill him.

“Commissioner Gordon’s office, how may I direct your call?”

Bruce isn’t getting his intel tonight, but the patients will get a nice visit from the GCPD.

He also sends out a text to Oracle, asking for some assistance with Arkham’s cameras. If anyone can find the footage of Jason taking off his helmet faster than the police or warden, it’s Babs.

Then, he gathers Dick into his arms, considering at first a bridal pose, and then opting for just slinging him over his shoulder. It’ll leave Jason a bit more maneuverability in case someone does attack from the darkened basement or in the tunnel.

He trudges back up to the swampy surface, concern etched on his brow, listening for any signs of life from his partner.


	3. A Serious House

Together, Jason taking point with Dick at his six, they exit the oddly empty corridors and into what once would have been the parlor of the house, a bright light shining in Dick’s eyes as they round the corner from the formal living room. He blinks and the light clarifies into the moon shining through the top of the twelve-foot windows that line the west wall. They’re lead-lined paned glass with a detail at the top that is reminiscent of medieval Catholicism, though the manor was built in the Victorian era.

“Well hello little birdies!” trills a high-pitched voice, greeting them.

The image that meets Nightwing and Red Hood isn’t a good one. Scarecrow, wearing a new mask that looks less comical and more sinister, sits up high atop the large marble mantle, almost as bendy as Ragdoll. Stationed on the floral upholstered chairs and one clashing settee, are Mad Hatter, Arnold Wesker, Maxie Zeus, and several lower level criminals probably placed inside by the GCPD. Most of them are dressed in scrubs, but a few have...accessorized themselves; mostly blood and dirt, but Hatter has found a new hat and a pipe, Arthur has given himself a tie. 

Along the wall, four orderlies are lined up, looking like they’ve been played with as dolls; dressed in makeup and clothes on top of their scrubs. They’re dead.

And there, in the middle—

Oh, god. How could he forget?

Gemini. Gemini is here.

Jason whistles. “Wow, all this for little ole us? Quite the red carpet!”

“Oh, you’ll be seeing red soon, little riding hood,” hisses Scarface back.

“Aren’t you missing a few of the gang? I know Harvey’s in here somewhere!” Jason says, cocking his gun. “I’d be happy to take you all out in a spray of bullets. Less time. I got things to do tomorrow.”

“Got a date?” _she_ asks, her attention on Red Hood.

Dick feels an impulse to jump in front of Jason, to bring her attention back to himself and protect Jason. Who has never once asked or wanted it. Dick adjusts his stance, fighting the urge.

Gemini stretches her limbs, and then _stretches_ them, for a moment a comically elongated version of herself, before she flows back into shape, black hair gleaming, her blue eyes alight with mischief. Even in white scrubs she is beautiful. Even in white, her presence causes Dick to shudder. She may have been forgiven by the state, placed here instead of in jail, but it doesn’t make her crimes disappear.

“Maybe I do,” Jason responds, clearly not picking up on the tension running through Dick’s body.

Gemini surges forward, her arms ahead of her body as she comes to wrap them around Jason’s neck, looking up at him, pouting. “Surely she can’t be prettier than me. I can show you a good time, Hood.”

“Enough,” both Dick and Scarecrow manage to say at the same time.

“Your beef is with me, Gemini,” Dick says, keeping his voice firm.

“Perhaps,” she says, her eyes glancing his way. “But I’m long over that, now. Seems like your partner here is more my type anyway. I bet he’s not impotent, like you.”

Dick walks himself through Bruce’s calming meditation mantra and turns his face to Scarecrow, who seems to be the organizer of the welcoming party. “Where’s Batman?”

The room bursts into laughter. The sound is unsettling, even as Dick feels something relax inside him when Gemini pulls off of Jason and back into the middle of the spectacle.

Jason aims his guns, one each, at Scarecrow and Gemini, the very picture of casual swagger and indifference. “Batman. He hasn’t been around. Last known place of occupancy – here.”

“You’re mistaken. Bats hasn’t been here in a good while. Not since the Joker’s last stay. Those two have something special, I really must say,” says Zeus, crackling with energy. He looks like a photo remnant sitting in a chair. He wears no shirt, only blue scrub pants, his emaciated body revealed, skin covered in goosebumps, hair eternally looking like he only just stabbed a fork into a socket. 

Dick swears he hears Lynyrd Skynyrd coming from somewhere, far off. Maybe playing in another room.

“No, we have to take our fun in the form of his little birds,” chimes in Scarecrow. “That’s why Harvey’s not here. He thinks you’re beneath him.”

Jason snorts. “Is that supposed to scare us or somethin’? More like that cowardly little shit’s afraid of what a bullet can do to his coin. I don’t fuck around like Batman.”

“Oh, definitely not impotent like you, Nightwing,” Gemini speaks up once more, tossing a smirk at Dick. Then, suddenly, she’s wrapped around him and it’s not her voice but Tarantula’s; that soft, Mexican accent. “Maybe he’ll get off when I fuck him.”

Caged in by her arms, Dick can’t get to his escrimas. He feels panic begin to rise until—

“Get off him, lady. He’s taken.”

“Oh? By you, big man?” Gemini says, coy, laughter coating her voice as she loosens her grip on Dick and forms back in front of Hood.

“Maybe. That change your mind, honey?” Jason mocks, all the while Dick does nothing but stand there and listen, feeling as if everyone’s eyes are on him, though they’re all actually trained on Gemini and Jason.

“No,” she says, her lips forming the words almost sensuously. “But it might explain a few things.”

“I’m not gay,” Dick says, feeling the need to nip the conversation in the bud. They should be looking for Bruce, caging these villains back up again, not flirting with a convicted shape-changing psychopath.

Beside him, Dick can feel Jason’s body go rigid, the line of his shoulders a brick wall.

“No one said you were,” he huffs.

“I suggested it,” Gemini says, followed by a chorus of “yes, she did”s from the peanut gallery lounging in the parlor.

Dick snarls.

“Touchy-touchy,” Scarecrow tuts. “But fascinating as it might be, I think the Bats and birds’ sexuality is best left for Strange to ponder and he’s not here right now. No, instead, we invited you to play. We weren’t lying when we said Bats isn’t here.” He tilts his head, stands on the mantle instead of crouching. “But we might know where he _is_. If you play – and win – we’ll help you find him.”

“Beware the court of owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime…”

Dick’s head instantly rotates to Scarface, sitting there singing a song every Gothamite knows but that Dick now knows personally, deeply.

Arthur leans over and places a hand on the dummy’s mouth, looking embarrassed. Like maybe the dummy spilled a secret.

“What do we have to do?” Jason asks, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s the tallest one in the room and paints an imposing figure. Especially with the cocky way he leaves the guns – safeties on at least – dangling from his fingertips.

“No, Hood. We don’t play their games,” Dick hisses. “If Batman isn’t here, we leave.”

Mad Hatter sets down the doll he was playing with – a little thing with straggly yellow yarn hair dressed like Alice that makes Dick’s stomach roll – and looks up for the first time. “You can check out any time, but you can never leave.”

Jason lets out a rare braying laugh. “Seriously? You think you’re spooky with _Hotel California_ lyrics?” He continues to chuckle as he holsters one of his guns again and steps right over to the large wooden door; the main way in and out of Arkham when you’re not pals with Batman. He glances back at Dick who shrugs.

Jason presses against the door. It doesn’t move.

He steps back, looks around and notices a lock. He glances over at the orderlies who look something like Professor Pyg got to them. He grabs a set of keys from one of the still bodies.

Jason tries again. The echo of the lock turning is loud, ominous. When he pushes on it, the door still doesn’t budge.

“Nightwing, come help me,” he calls.

Keeping his eye on the crowd of villains, Dick moves over to Jason. Together they push. Still nothing.

“I tell them, they don’t believe me. Welcome to Wonderland.”

“Fuck,” Jason mutters. “Do we dare go out the way we came in?”

“I’m not sure they wouldn’t follow us. And we still don’t know if the gas came from them or not.”

“I think it has to be. I don’t exactly hear GCPD breaking down the doors.”

“Which means we need to figure out what they’re up to,” Dick says, certain.

“You still good? From whatever knocked you out? And that lady – who is she?”

Dick gulps. “Gemini. A two-bit villain who can change her shape. I forgot she got put here because Blüdhaven doesn’t have a mental hospital like this one.”

“So what’d she do? You seem awfully jumpy.”

Dick doesn’t know how to explain it’s not Gemini’s crimes that bother him, so much as her abilities. What she can change into. What she knows about him. “Just surprised,” he lies. He knows Jason is searching his face through his helmet and he shrugs, maintaining a practiced cool façade.

“Whatever you say, ‘Wing. But if this bites us in the ass, I’m taking it out on yours.”

Dick lifts an eyebrow, wondering if he misinterpreted the innuendo or not. He must have because Jason simply turns around and crosses back to Gemini. “Alright, lady. I know Crane up there wants us to think it’s his show, but I can see the person pulling the strings. I was a mob boss. What do you want?”

Gemini’s smile is more an air of amusement than a true quirk of her lips. She looks pointedly at Dick and then states, voice almost a chanting monotone, “You’re on the edge of a breakthrough. Open your mind when the Moon waxes full in forward-thinking Aquarius. Your circumstances could change in unexpected ways when Pluto moves into your twelfth house of inner growth and fears in conjunction with Jupiter. Mercury enters enthusiastic Leo, encouraging you to be braver when expressing your spiritual side. The Sun illuminates your ninth house of exploration, adventure, and belief beginning tonight, encouraging you to open your mind. Tell the truth and fate may find you yet. You have until the blood moon sets.”

Dick and Jason stand in silence. Dick tries to parse through the cryptic words, but apparently, Jason’s having none of it. He shifts his weight and places one hand on his hip, the other, still holding his gun, gestures wildly.

“Okay, what the actual fuck.”

Everyone in the room looks at him but says nothing, Dick included.

“No, seriously. I get this is an insane asylum and all, but what the fuck was that? Last time I checked, none of the mystical freaks were in here. You’re just a pedophile; you’re a psychopath who took too many of his own toxins; you, Zeus, are definitely not a god but some meta gone wrong; and you’re just a guy with multiple personalities.” Jason gestures from Mad Hatter to Arthur as he goes through the people in the room. “And from what I know about you, lady, you’re just another meta who probably likes to kill, if my partner isn’t too fond of you.

“So, I ask again. What the actual fuck?”

He’s met with a series of blinks and silence.

“Yeah, see, you guys are too used to playing with Batman. Well, from one Bat about another, most of the time he’s as crazy as all of you. He might fuck with your twisted riddles, but I don’t. I deal in guns, drugs, and putting pedos like you, Hatter, in jail and not rehabilitation. Repeatedly fucking nine-year-old girls is not a mental problem. Now either let us out, tell me what you really want, or I start shooting.”

“Hood,” Dick tries, but Jason shrugs him off.

“Which is it?” Jason clicks the safety off and the men start to look at each other uncomfortably. Zeus is practically crackling with contained electricity. Which is not unusual, but the way he begins to hum to himself and fidgets is. Hatter shoves the doll behind him like he can bury his sins and Scarecrow leaps down from the mantle.

“Men,” huffs Gemini and then she stretches out, changing into a kind of human shield and chaos breaks out.

Dick hears a gun discharge but he’s too busy grabbing his escrima and staying back-to-back with Jason to see if the bullet hits anyone. Hatter tries to flee; the man is more comfortable around young women and fantasy than in a fight and Dick is quickly able to coral him and tie him to a chair with the cords from the windows’ curtains.

Amazing that each time they come back, Arkham has been altered, yet it never seems to actually keep the patients in, the orderlies undead, or stop offering tools that can be used by both villain and hero. All the Wi-Fi updates and technology enhancements do nothing to combat a mansion built in the 1870’s.

He runs up and over a chair, using a sliver of wall in between the windows for purchase and flips over, trying to catch Gemini unawares to shock her with his escrima but Maxie Zeus blocks him, and the charge is only absorbed.

He gets close enough to Zeus to hear what he’s humming: _Back in Black_ , AC/DC.

He feints and as Zeus grows tall, he slides under and takes one of the sticks to Scarface, hearing the broken wail of Arthur, now rendered ineffective until he builds another dummy. Arthur sits in his chair and rocks and cries.

But, as Dick looks up to see Jason shooting out the kneecap of Crane before Scarecrow can drop a bottle of who-knows-what from his hand, Dick is hit with a bolt of electricity so strong, he passes out, the glinting red helmet the last thing he sees.

Night-night, Nightwing,” in Gemini’s crooning voice is the last thing he hears.

*

Jason barely recalls the trip back to the cave, other than the adjusting he’d had to do on the curves from Arkham to the Manor’s underground entrance. He’ll go back for Dick’s ride when he wakes up. Or maybe, he can convince Dick to ride with him, clutching tight around his waist, face close to Jason’s ear, instead of slumped over the handlebars with Jason trying to keep his limp body from throwing off his driving.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jason asks. He barely recognizes his voice. It cracks and breaks, an octave lower than his usual baritone.

Dick’s still-limp body is resting on the medical table in the middle of the medical lab, Bruce looking like a determined busybody as he pokes and prods and takes blood samples and swabs at Dick’s nose.

Bruce doesn’t even look at him, scratching instead at his five o’clock shadow. “He’s inhaled some kind of toxin, not just a sleeping gas. My guess would be Scarecrow. But whatever it is, it’s a new formula, so it could as easily be Ivy or Joker. Someone else, even. I’ll have the mass spec work on separating the components, see if I can determine its base; go from there.”

“You think he’ll be alright?”

At that, Bruce does look up. His face is stoic as ever, but the Robins – even Jason – have been around long enough to pick up on his nuances. Bruce is curious.

“I can only perform science, Jason, not miracles.” His voice goes softer. “You know I’ll do what I can. I called The Flash. But unfortunately, chemistry is a process not even he can hasten.”

Jason nods. He leans his back against the cool wall of the med room. Then he straightens. “I need a cigarette.”

“Go by the car,” Bruce says. It’s a concession to the fact that Jason is being obvious about how upset he is that Bruce neither tells him smoking is bad for him, or that he has to go outside where Alfred won’t smell it. “I’ll do tests on you next.”

Jason misses Dick’s voice telling him smoking will kill him.

_I’ve been dead once already, Dickie._  
And I don’t want to lose you again.  
It won’t be these that do it, you know that. 

He goes through three cigarettes, staring off into the depths of the cave, each smoked until they burn the tips of his fingers and he can feel for that one moment, before he snuffs them out under his boot. Finally, filled with enough nicotine to calm him, he wanders back through the cave, dragging his feet like a toddler, nervous to see Dick looking like a dead body on the slab.

He takes in the giant penny and the huge dinosaur as if with new eyes. He knows Damian uses the dinosaur to get away sometimes and he wonders if the kid is hiding there now. It’s strangely quiet; Alfred has yet to come down and greet them. Perhaps he went to visit his daughter. Jason will have to ask.

He could use a bit of Alfie’s hot cocoa right now, if he’s being honest. Maybe, even, the scent would wake Dick up.

When he returns to the med lab, everything is the same - the sterile walls, the table with the silver tray and tools, the medical machinery including an MRI machine set around the space, and the small computer desk - except Bruce has apparently finished fussing over Dick and is standing there, looking like a butcher in his PPE, fingers holding a vial.

He nods to Jason who hops up on the second table and holds out his arm for Bruce.

“Tell me again what happened,” Bruce prompts, as he begins the same testing procedures on Jason that he did on Dick.

Jason sighs and closes his eyes, trying to remember as vividly as possible, in the hopes that he can recall a minor detail that slipped his mind when the story first came tumbling out as he carried Dick into the cave proper but could help now. By the time he’s recounted the walk out of the tunnel, Bruce is finished, and he hears the vial of blood click into place in the mass spectrometer next to Dick’s and the machine begins to spin, a gentle whirring sound that easily fades into the background.

“And you never saw anyone?” he asks.

Shaking his head, Jason gets off the table, moving to the spinning office chair instead. Bruce gives him a disapproving glance, but it’s not like Bruce was going to actually sit, anyway.

“That’s certainly unusual,” Bruce continues, leaning against the counter holding the mass spec. His brow is furrowed, mostly in concentration, rather than worry. His lips are thinned, the muscles in his arms bulging as he crosses them, black workout tee pulling tight. “I’m uncertain who would have planted the gas. I know it wasn’t GCPD; Gordon would have told me.”

“Did Gordon call?” Jason asks, looking up, trying to keep his fingers from reaching for another cigarette from the smooshed pack in his jeans pocket.

“No. Should he have?”

Jason thinks, normally, after the call to the police by a vigilante, Gordon would have called Batman, checked in with him. “No,” he says.

“We’ll figure it out, Jaylad,” Bruce follows up, quiet.

The nickname startles Jason to the point that he pinches himself, just to be sure he isn’t dreaming. He hasn’t heard that kind of affection and acceptance from Bruce since he was fifteen. He rubs a hand across his face. Fuck, he must really look like shit.

“Hey, where’s Alfie—?”

His question is cut off when Dick moans. Both men instantly turn towards the bed.

Dick moans again, this one smaller, sounding more like breathy exhale.

Jason honestly doesn’t know which is there faster, but he has to control his urge to glare at Bruce, to crouch over Dick and bare his teeth. It’s a surprising thought – not the sense of protectiveness for Dick, that’s nothing new – but the urge to claim, to fight for the right to be at Dick’s side. Dick will always belong at Batman’s side, no matter their differences, their endless fights. It’s how fathers and grown sons are, and all it does is affirm how Jason doesn’t quite fit into the family, regardless of whether or not Bruce calls him a pet nickname.

He swallows it all back, though, keeping his hands clenched on the table’s edge instead of at Bruce’s throat or in Dick’s matted hair. He wonders if whatever affected Dick is finally hitting him, if he’s going to pass out, too.

It turns out, Dick isn’t waking up, only dreaming. His eyelids flutter rapidly, a sure sign of REM sleep.

“This is good,” Bruce says, picking up a pen light and then opening Dick’s eyelids one after another to shine it in his eyes, checking his pupils. Jason can barely make out the ocean blue. It looks dark, clouded like the sea in a storm. “It means he’s moved out of a coma stage. Now, I think, we’ll just have to wait. Wait to see if he wakes up, wait to see if there’s any side effects.”

Jason hates waiting.


	4. Assassin's Apprentice

Dick wakes up.

This is getting to be uncomfortable and potentially dangerous for the future. A man’s body can only take so many blows to the head, much less in one night. He looks around the room once he’s able to blink his eyes open. At least they left his mask on.

The room is dark, only the moon shining in through a large window with bars across it, presumably meant to keep the patient in. However, there’s no patient but him, at the moment. The room feels chilly, even with the humid air; more like a basement room than one of the towers.

He feels his head for a bump or additional injuries and finds nothing. Even his mask is intact. But then he realizes – Jason is gone.

He leaps up with a sudden burst of adrenaline and when he flips around to face the door of the room, he’s greeted with a sight he hasn’t exactly missed.

“Long time no see, chickadee,” drawls Slade.

Deathstroke stands there in full uniform, sans the hood that dangles from his heavy belt. The blue and orange take on eerie shades in the tower cell.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Slade?” Dick growls, hands automatically reaching for his escrima sticks. He fails to find them and tries to hide his panic.

Slade snorts. “Looking for these, pretty boy?” He pulls Dick’s sticks from his own sword scabbard, uncovered eye twinkling. “Thought I taught you better than that. Those folks downstairs, they shouldn’t even have had a chance at you. ‘Specially not with Hood by your side. You know, if I’d known what that little second Robin was going to become, I wouldn’t even have bothered with you.” He pauses, a lascivious grin breaking over his stony features. “Still, you were so nice to break.”

Blinded by a sudden rage, Dick launches himself at Slade’s grinning face, hands out, snarl on his own face. He thinks he yells out something like “I never broke,” but Slade manages to backhand him midair, so hard that he’s tossed into the wall and as he slides down it, his head is ringing, so he isn’t really sure.

When he shakes his head clear of little colored stars, Slade is looming above him. He crouches down, his handsome face – even with the eyepatch and scar – close. Too close.

His hand comes up and cradles Dick’s chin. Dick flinches but can’t pull away.

“You were so pretty, little bird. Young and naïve, and willing. _So_ willing.”

“Willing to murder? Never,” Dick snarls.

Slade adopts a surprised look. “You don’t remember? Have you blocked me out, precious? All those nights we spent together? I’m wounded.” The older man pretends to pout; it’s not a good look.

“What are you talking about?” Dick asks, nervous when Slade’s hand moves from his chin to his neck, then down to cup his shoulder. Slade’s eye travels over him, a strange, lecherous smirk on his face.

“Surely, you recall. The way you gave it up to me? You were so easy then. You wanted what you couldn’t get from Batman; affection, someone who listened, someone who cared and wanted you for you.” Slade laughs, a deep, rumbly chuckle. “It didn’t take a psychologist to understand you had daddy issues. Oh, not about your real father. I know you loved him and your mother, like all good boys do. But you were sixteen and rebelling against your mentor, your father figure.”

Slade’s hand cuts a path across Dick’s chest and down to his groin, leaving behind a blazing trail of confusion, shame, and desire. “It’s not a bad thing to like older men, Dickie. To want to please them. I just took advantage.”

Dick pushes at Slade, using both hands, and when the other man doesn’t move, he fakes standing and then rolls and ducks under his arm instead, alighting to his feet on the other side of the cell, panting and flushed, more than a little turned on and more than a little disgusted by that fact.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Slade. I don’t have ‘daddy issues’ and I definitely never slept with you.”

Slade purrs and begins stalking him, a giant jungle cat after a small bird. “No, I wouldn’t call what we did _sleeping_.”

“We didn’t have sex, either,” Dick says, almost yelling. There’s a feeling creeping up on him, causing his throat to close up, like he’s choking. He didn’t, right? He wouldn’t block that out. Not unless Slade drugged him. But still – wouldn’t he remember _something?_ “I was naïve, and I was so desperate for attention that I sought it from you, a murdering asshole who cares about nothing but money. But it lasted two months, our apprenticeship, and there was _nothing_ sexual about it.”

“You keep telling yourself that, little bird,” Slade says, grin careening wildly on his face. He manages to cage Dick in the corner and flips him over, shoving him face-first into the wall. “But I remember this ass and the way it used to welcome me—”

Dick uses Slade’s distraction with his ass and elbows the man in the face, hopefully busting his nose. As the heavy weight staggers back and off of Dick, he whips around and kicks Slade’s feet out from under him so that the man falls to his knees, barely breaking his fall with one hand as he’s still clutching at his nose. Dick slides along the wall to the front of the cell where the door is, finally regaining his escrima sticks.

He opens the door and turns around, to see Slade struggling to get back onto his feet. He makes no move towards Dick, though.

Dick plants his feet, adopting a defensive pose with sticks raised. It won’t stop Slade, just like a broken nose is a minor injury that will be healed within minutes. But it might let Dick get away long enough to lose the mercenary in the asylum.

“Going to you was always a mistake. You were never what I needed, and you only taught me to not trust men like you. I certainly never fucked you; that’s your own sick fantasy, Deathstroke. I don’t have sex with old men who prey on children. Only people I trust.”

Slade smiles then, something less gruesome and leering. His face begins to droop and Dick gasps, taking a further step back into the hall when parts of the mercenary begin to melt.

“What—?”

“At least I taught you something,” Slade’s voice says, but it’s Gemini saying it, Slade’s body having reformed into her shape, clad in a swirling black mass. The moon shining in the window gives it a liquid sheen.

“Now, for a little retrograde!” Gemini says, her voice her own again and she moves, faster than Dick can anticipate, the black strands striking out and wrapping around him until he can’t move, can only see her face, her dark hair mixing with the elongated mass, unclear where one stops and the other begins.

*

Within an hour, Dick says his first word. He’s still sleeping but his whole body shudders, like someone walked across his future grave and then—

“Hood,” the unconscious man mumbles.

Jason shoves down the hint of glee that rises. It was just a mission. He was the last person Dick saw; of course, he’s thinking about it, passed out as he is.

Bruce uses the pen light again, but nothing else has changed. Not until Dick begins to convulse.

They each clamp down on a limb, struggling to keep Dick’s body safe from falling or injuring itself. Jason and Bruce exchange glances across Dick and Jason sees his own concern finally etched on Bruce’s face, too.

Then, Dick begins to talk.

“Slade, no.”

“I never broke.”

“Willing to murder? Never.”

“I don’t have daddy issues.”

The last is so absurd, said in the vacuum of the lab and without context, Jason finds himself bursting out in anxious laughter. Bruce looks vaguely pained.

Dick continues to carry on a full conversation, punctuated occasionally with whimpers and pained grunt, with a slurring of words or the occasional “no” and “stop.” Jason’s laughter quickly fades and something unsettling turns in his stomach.

“I was naïve, and I was so desperate for attention—”

Then Dick is overwhelmed by another convulsion, his words cutting off, and Jason’s never been more grateful for something that shuts Dick up. When Dick finally calms down and seems to slip back into a heavy sleep, Jason and Bruce let go.

Jason thinks about what those words implied, wonders if Dick is dreaming or reliving something. But Slade? He wouldn’t think Dick would go that far to piss off Bruce but—

He looks up and sees Batman looking down at Dick, for all that the man is cowl-free. His eyes are flint, so hot they look cold...

Summoning courage, Jason speaks up. “I want you out.”

“Excuse me?” asks Bruce, genuinely startled and confused.

“You need to leave, B.”

Bruce frowns, lips downturned in that serious expression he gets, usually when a criminal is starting to make him mad. Fine, let Jason be the villain. He’s comfortable in that role.

“Neither of us should be here. He wouldn’t want us to be. But he said my name and since someone needs to stay with him, it’s going to be me.” Jason tries to soften his expression. “Look, I don’t think he’d want his dad hearing about…about things he’s had to do. Or what’s been forced on him.”

“I should know. I have a right to know.”

Jason scoffs. “So you can do what? Are you going to kill Slade? Will you hunt down anyone who Dick’s ever had sex with like some conservative asshat with a gun over his daughter’s virginity? Stop sounding so sad and righteous when you’re just being creepy.

“If whatever he inhaled is some kind of truth gas, B, you can’t handle what he might say, and he wouldn’t want you to know. And even if it’s just dreaming, I don’t think he wants you to know what’s hidden in his psyche, either.”

Bruce stares back at him, stonily. Amazing how, once you know what the man is capable of, his charming façade wears off, even when he looks like nothing more than Bruce Wayne, lady-chasing billionaire. In an apron.

Jason tries again, thinks. He places his hand in Dick’s, loosely grabbing it. He’s not lying when he says he doesn’t think Dick would want Bruce to know – or he’d already have told him. That doesn’t mean he’d want Jason to know either, but there are things Jason understands and this is one. He won’t look at Dick different for this, like a father might.

He chews his lip and looks up. It’s an underhanded, manipulative move but if it does what he wants—

Sure enough, Bruce’s eyes soften, and he sighs, tension unlocking in his shoulders. “I guess, if you already knew and he didn’t even tell me about—” Bruce waves at Jason and Dick, vaguely, “whatever this is between you, I can try to respect that.”

There’s barely an ounce of guilt that passes through Jason at Bruce’s false assumption. He’ll have hell to pay from Dick later, but he hopes that doing it for the sake of keeping his secrets will cut the edge off Dick’s righteous anger.

“I’ll let you know if he says anything…case-related,” Jason concedes.

Bruce nods and begins pulling off his PPE while still watching as Dick tosses on the padded table.

Jason’s surprised when Dick turns towards him and curls into his body, hand tightening on Jason’s grasp. He takes his eyes off Bruce and brushes back a lock of damp hair from Dick’s forehead.

He looks up when he hears the door to the med lab open.

“Anything,” Bruce emphasizes, “that might be relevant. If he wakes up, I want to be here immediately.”

Jason nods and moves to pull the chair over to Dick’s makeshift bedside. Dick’s grip is still tight, though, so he stretches his foot out and snags the chair that way instead.

Bruce gives them both a hard stare, looks like he doesn’t want to go; Jason doesn’t know if it’s concern for Dick’s general well-being or concern for leaving Dick there with _Jason_. He finds he doesn’t care. He turns back to Dick and barely registers the door closing.

When he does, though, he turns to his watch and pulls out one of the knobs. With two full rotations, he’s effectively jammed the cameras and bugs in the room from picking up anything other than white static. Yes, B will still see them on camera, but he won’t be able to _hear_ Dick’s secrets slip out – or Jason’s responses.

He puts his head down on the bed and looks up over Dick’s body, taking in the first spattering of whiskers showing up under his chin, the pallor to his skin and the dark circles under his eyes.

Somehow, he’s still the most beautiful thing Jason’s seen.

“Come on, Dickie. Come back.”


	5. Retrograde

This time, when Dick wakes up, he’s nursing a headache. The ground is blissfully cool under him and he puts his forehead to the cold stone, heedless of what else might be on the floor, and groans.

“It’s all for love, baby,” he hears a voice say and he swears it’s familiar, the phrase and the voice but his brain feels like an egg, splattered on a hot summer’s day and it leaves him as fast as it comes.

When he does look up, he immediately puts his head back down and tries to wake up again.

“Nu-uh, Dick Grayson,” comes her honeyed voice with the lilting light accent. A small, soft hand with gun callouses touches his face and turns it towards the voice he’d hoped to never hear again. “Darling, you’ve got to look at me.”

“It’s a dream,” he mumbles, keeping his eyes closed. This is worse than Slade. Worse than what Slade suggested.

“No, it’s not, papí,” Catalina says.

Dick finally succumbs and opens his eyes.

It’s like no years have passed; Tarantula looks just like she did that night with Blockbuster. Her thick brown hair is tied back, draping over her shoulder; her cold brown eyes a contrast to her warm tone. A gilded smirk rests on her face. She wears her costume colors but in an orange tank top and black jeans, combat boots on her feet. She’s crouched down next to him, resting on her knees, the small roll her stomach makes in her tight jeans within his sight.

Objectively, she’s still a stunning woman. But his gut recoils.

“You’ve changed your hair,” she says, her fingers gliding through his messy strands. It feels like she leaves behind grease. “So short. You never look good with short hair.”

“I don’t care what you think,” he rasps.

“Don’t hurt me like that,” Catalina says, lips moving into a pout. “I’m your wife, after all.”

“No,” he says, his voice weak even to his own ears. “That was fake. Coerced. I’d never marry you.”

“Oh, darling. I hate that I have to go through this every time with you.”

“Every time?” Dick asks, confusion getting the better of him, like it did with Slade.

Slade. Wait. Jason. Where is Jason?

“Dios mio! Always with _him_. He’s nothing to you, papi.”

Dick looks at her, really looks at Catalina, and sits up. “Jason is my partner.”

“ _I’m_ your partner, mi amor.”

“He’s my _partner_. Not my lover. I’m not gay.”

“I know you aren’t. You love me. It’s just, you always talk about _him_. He can’t give you what I can, though.”

“You mean he won’t rape me,” Dick responds, and it’s not a question.

“Oh, shush, darling. I know you don’t remember a lot of that night. You were in shock. Devastated by your actions.”

That has him on his feet, headache not gone but pushed to the back of his mind as anger encompasses his emotions instead. _His_ actions? He begins to pace, subtly looking around for his escrima. Then he looks down and realizes, he doesn’t have his mask. He doesn’t have his Nightwing suit on. Instead, he’s dressed in black yoga pants and a loose-fitting muscle tank.

“Where am I?” He tries not to panic. He’s naked without his suit, his weapons.

Catalina sighs and stands up too, slipping in close while Dick’s feeling out of it, squeezing him tight in a hug. It feels good for all of two seconds before he comes to his senses and pushes her away.

She looks at him, brown eyes now filled with tears. “Every time, it is like this. Dick, I hate having to remind you.”

“Remind me of what?” he asks, suspicious.

“We…that is, your father and I, well, after Blockbuster, you snapped. Batman had to chase you down, subdue you. We put you in Arkham, hoping you would get better.” She gives a quiet, dainty hiccup of a sob. “But every time. You mention your brother like a lover; you cast me away and state I am not your wife. You hurt me, Dick!”

Catalina throws herself on the bed behind her, shoulders wracked with sobs that aren’t as dainty, yet still cloyingly sweet.

It’s a sham.

“Batman would never put me in Arkham. I don’t belong here,” he says, confident. “Maybe you put me in here, when I wouldn’t marry you but—”

“Just stop, Dick,” she wails, wiping tears from her now blotchy face. The tracks are still there, cutting through her otherwise perfect makeup. “We are married. You see this?” She holds up a hand. On it rests his mother’s wedding ring. “I am Catalina Grayson. I am _your wife_!”

Dick flinches. He glances at his own left hand and sees it’s bare. He holds it up, like it’s a trophy. “Then why don’t I have a ring?”

“It’s an asylum, Dick. They’re not going to give you something you can hurt yourself with.” Catalina’s brown shoulders still shake, and she bites her lip, as though she’s holding back another cry. She pulls on a chain around her neck that he hadn’t noticed and from between her breasts slips a golden man’s ring. “I carry it with me at all times, keeping you with me, mi amor.”

Dick stomps to the cell door, his feet slapping the stone. “Guards. Guards! I want her out! Take her away!”

“They won’t come. You do this, too. They know, eventually you’ll calm down and listen. And they don’t want to be here to hear us when you do.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” he says, still looking out the window of the cell. There’s no one in sight, just a long dark hallway.

Something tickles the back of his mind, like the moon’s shadow caressing Catalina’s skin, but every time he tries to focus on it, it slips away. He pounds a fist on the door, flattening it out after. The dull pain tells him he’s awake in this nightmare.

“It means,” she responds, voice all liquid honey again, “that each time you remember, you make love to me.”

He shudders. Make love. Not when—not her—no.

“I wouldn’t.”

“But papí, you have.” Her voice is right next to his ear and he jumps, but he can’t escape her web. His body reacts when she presses up against his ass, her hands falling to his hips. It wants. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s been practically celibate for a year – finding himself uninterested in most people, in sex, generally – or because he’s delusional and has been celibate in Arkham for however long. If maybe, his body is reacting because it’s used to her, used to responding to her touch.

He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping to wake up, to make it all stop.

Instead, he feels soft lips press kisses against the back of his neck and sinks into a touch that turns his stomach but arouses his body. His cock begins to harden as Catalina wraps her arms around him, walks him back to the bed.

He zones out and it’s that night, all over again. He barely recognizes himself, hardly realizes he’s doing just what she wants. His body arches into her mouth as she strips him of his tank. He sinks onto the bed. Her small hands, capable of holding a gun – of firing, _of killing_ – are also soft and tender and even loving as they pass over his body, seemingly knowing everything he likes. They slide his pants down, reach into his boxers, caress his cock and then she’s sliding down, down, putting her mouth on him and Dick gives in, just like that night; the moon beams down on them, the sky clear instead of storming, but his mind is tumultuous instead, going hazy and fuzzy and he lets his head fall back and he _imagines_.

Imagines it’s a different brunet going down on him. One that’s also murdered but never in Dick’s name or for Dick. If anything, that person knew it would push Dick away. The bed beneath him jabs his back and to escape he pushes up and someone sucks his cock in deeper and it’s hot and wet and he gasps, and his hands slip into brown hair, tangling in the locks. Sex fills the air, thick on his tongue and he hates it, wants to vomit but—no, no, it’s alright, it’s someone he trusts and—

“Jason,” he moans as he comes.

He surges up, mind suddenly clear as he’s released from writhing black tentacles, Gemini’s face once more in his sightline. He’s still in his costume, escrima sticks in hand.

“Two down. Be careful of Pluto in the twelfth house.”

*

Jason thinks he must have passed out, at least for fifteen minutes or so, because he’s groggy when he first hears Dick speak again. At first, he thinks Dick’s awake, actually speaking to him.

“I don’t care what you think,” he rasps.

Jason looks up at that, feeling an unjustified hurt, then realizes Dick is still sleeping, trapped by a sleeping gas. He doubts it, but he wonders if B would find out what was wrong with Dick and not come in to tell him. The soft chirring of the mass spec soothes Jason’s fear.

In the bright light of the lab, and without Bruce hovering, Jason takes time to really look at Dick. He keeps the hand he’d claimed for his little show to Bruce, suddenly not willing to give up the pretense. He tells himself it’s so Bruce doesn’t catch on, but Jason knows, only like this, would Dick ever let him this close.

Dick’s coloring is looking better, backing away from sallow to gaining some pink under his usually tan coloring. His hair is still a ratted mess, damp and drying from sweat. Jason brushes it back from his face; it’s the least he can do. He wonders about the suit, if Dick would be more comfortable if he weren’t in his vigilante clothing, but Jason fears removing it would go too far. He doesn’t want to call Bruce back to do it, either. Hopefully, Dick will wake up soon enough that it won’t be a problem.

“I’d never marry you.” Dick sounds scared.

Jason can’t imagine sitting by Dick’s bedside every day, captured by the gas while Jason gets off scot-free, left to hover like a neglected wife.

“Jason is my partner.”

He’s taken out of his own morbid fantasy when Dick says his name.

“He’s my _partner_. Not my lover. I’m not gay.”

Jason almost stands up and leaves right then. Fuck, it’s not enough he already knew this, but now he’s got to hear Dick tell him when he’s fucking asleep? It’s almost funny, after hearing what sounded like maybe Dick and Slade had—well, to hear Dick say he isn’t gay. It certainly fits Jason’s older brother figure more, though. At least, Jason’s impression of him.

Never once has Dick shown sexual attraction to men; trust Jason to know, he’s looked for it.

The only thing that keeps Jason from leaving though is Dick’s next mumbled words:

“You mean he won’t rape me.”

It’s not a question. And, oh, _fuck_. He can’t go now.

The knuckles of his free hand turn white while Dick continues to talk; Jason watches the color drain, fascinated.

“Batman would never put me in Arkham. I don’t belong here, I don’t belong, not here, not you…”

Dick trails off again until suddenly his body is moving, little, small movements and his gasps turn less scared, but more – Jason hates to think about it – aroused. Jason dreads looking down but when he does, he sees Dick is half-chubbed in his suit. He looks up at the camera, the one he knows has a perfect angle to watch the bed. He moves to sit on the table alongside Dick, leaning over with one arm, blocking the camera’s view of any action that might be happening to Dick as he dreams. It’s involuntary, an obvious reaction to whatever has him captured.

Raped. As if the first words about Slade weren’t enough, now Jason _knows_. He wants, well, he wants to get his hands on whoever it was who made Dick sound so scared, so spaced out as he moans and wriggles on the table, arousal vying with what sounds like sheer terror. He’s a hypocrite, telling Bruce he can’t go after anyone Dick’s had sex with but now, he’s got the burning cold desire to do the same.

If he ever meets the person Dick is talking about…

Alright, he wouldn’t kill them. Killing that person would alienate Dick from Jason forever. But they’d pay. And they’d know _why_.

Then the mood turns; there’s a full-blown moan and Jason bites his lip because that’s _his_ name now coming out of Dick’s mouth, moaned like the older man was feeling immense pleasure and Jason looks away, knowing Dick will hate him for seeing this, for being there.

This time, when the shaking stops, Jason doesn’t know if Dick has passed out into that coma-like state again, or if he’s passed out because he’s just fucking come on Batman’s medical table, calling out Jason’s own name, after declaring himself not gay.

But once the shakes have stopped, Dick lets out a pitiful whine and Jason finds himself scooping the other man into him, turning him on his side, away from the red light of the camera. The new position allows him to brush back Dick’s hair further. He’s about to get a wet cloth and wipe him down when Dick’s hand tightens its grip and he actively curls into Jason, his knees resting against Jason’s ass and his arm slung across Jason’s knees.

It’s everything Jason’s wanted and he’s too selfish to let it go, so instead, he clings back and proceeds to stare down at Dick’s relaxed face, hoping he’s getting any kind of respite from whatever is plaguing him in his dreams.


	6. Confessions

At a certain point, when Dick has gone back to being as still as death, Jason has nothing to do. He finds himself talking, covering the silence from Dick. He rubs at his face, feeling exhaustion kicking in.

“You know, I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen, Dick. Sure, it was a whole lotta hero worship, first. Not romantic love. I was both too young and too old. Too young to really feel love, but also, too jaded from the Narrows and the apartments I grew up in to even believe in love. I’d seen abusers and single moms and dealt with the repercussions from the local gangs’ ‘enforcement’ tactics and the ‘safety pay’. Love was a thing for rich people, and fairy tales. When you’re poor, you don’t get love. You’re lucky to get a steady paycheck and the lack of a backhand.”

He exhales.

“So, no. I didn’t know that I liked dudes romantically yet. But I knew I liked you. You remember – you and Bruce had had a falling out and for the first time, you came to see me – and you were _nice_ to me. It was like, your weird way of showing him up, I think.”

Jason chuckles fondly.

“You took me out with the rest of the Titans, and we went to the amusement park. There I was, surrounded by some of the coolest teens anyone could know. Roy with his wit, Wally with his goofiness and penchant for too much food right before a ride, Garth’s quiet steadiness, Donna’s insane hotness.

“But you were the only one I saw. I mean, I think Roy said something about Donna’s boobs and I probably looked and laughed, but man. You. I had stars in my eyes.

“He still teases me to this day, about my crush. Roy. Calls me a hopeless romantic. Like he’s not pining after Donna still, even after Jade. After Kori and him.”

Jason pauses, looks down at Dick, and smoothes the frown at the corner of his lips with a gentle thumb. Dick appears to actually be resting, now. He hasn’t so much as twitched, much less convulsed for the last hour.

Just then, there’s a small chime. He looks up and sees the mass spec has turned green. He slowly retracts his hand from Dick’s grip, tries to ignore the small whine it garners.

He skims the computer readout. His results: clean. Dick’s…it’s a jumble. It literally is gibberish.

The goddamn thing is broken.

In a fever pitch of frustration, he punches the machine, breaking in the side. It whirs a dying chirp at him.

Ouch. Bruce is probably going to take that back out on him. Not that the man can’t afford a hundred mass specs. Jason would have expected he’d make sure it was working properly.

He finds a sheet of paper and a pen and writes, ignoring the pain in his hand: YOUR POS MACHINE IS BROKEN. BARRY BETTER COME THROUGH. He holds it up to the camera he knows is peering down from the corner – opposite the one he’s been looking at throughout the night. Then he crumples the paper and tosses it in the trash can.

Jason paces. He’s sat too long and even though he doesn’t fidget like Dick does, anxious for the action, for the flying, he doesn’t like waiting on something that he can’t predict. Criminals are generally set to a routine, at least the ones he deals with. But Batman’s rogues – Gotham’s insane crowd – and their toxins and gas and fucked up riddles - don’t follow routine. Except when they do.

But right now, Batman’s machine is broken, and Dick is broken, and Jason feels himself slowly breaking.

“Dick, you gotta come back. This family will explode without you. Even when you’re not here, you and Alfred keep us together. Otherwise, Tim would go off with his boyfriend and Damian would be mentorless because fuck, Bruce is an awful father. No offense to you.

“Without you, Bruce would fall apart. He’ll just keep going until he grinds himself into ashes.

“And me, well,” Jason huffs his chest, like Dick can see him. “I’ll probably go get myself killed trying to take out the Joker. You don’t want that on your conscious, do you, big bird?”

He deflates. “Come back, you dick, don’t let me go out like that.” He resorts to the old dick jokes because he’s adrift.

Jason returns to the chair by Dick’s bed and sits. He curls his hand back in Dick’s and wipes at his sweaty brow for him.


	7. Who Do You Love?

This time when he wakes up, Dick opens his eyes and stares up at the vaulted rafters of the Arkham house’s tower room. Something peers back down at him, but for the moment, he can’t be bothered to give a fuck.

“Hey, Gemini. Let’s cut the crap, okay? Can I have my partner back?”

Silence aside from one gentle owl hoot greets him.

“I’m tired. Can you tell me what you want? Can you tell me he’s okay?”

The owl flies out of the rafter, perhaps startled at his voice – and then lands, crouched on all fours on top of him.

A talon.

It never ends. This time, he knows he won’t wake up. It seems only once he’s learned whatever ridiculous lesson Gemini feels the need to teach him that he gets to move on. At this point, he doesn’t know if each round is a dream, if it’s _all_ a dream, or if it’s very, very real.

“Who?” the talon repeats, tilting its head. Its black and yellow mask with the curved horns looks sinister, almost blending into the night and the tower room’s darkness.

Still, it hasn’t made a move to kill him yet.

“Who?” Dick parrots, feeling nasty. “My partner. Red Hood. Tall guy. Wears a helmet. Looks way scarier than you.”

The talon simply cocks its head the other direction. “Who?”

Then, echoing in the rafters and the stone, a chorus: “Gray Son. You have been selected to die by the Court. Talon; execute.”

Dick has the briefest of microseconds to get his feet under him and he flips up, using an old acrobat move so that he lands on the balls of his feet, armed and ready with his escrimas in a defensive stance.

Talon strikes.

His hand comes up, slashing at Dick, who blocks it with a stick.

“Who?” the talon asks.

“Red Hood.”

“Gray Son. You have been chosen for death.”

“Who?”

“My partner!” Dick yells, fending off another slash. So far, this is the weakest Talon he’s come across.

“Gray Son.”

“Who?”

Another slash, this time a fake for the swipe at Dick’s legs. He rolls with the kick, hopping back to his feet after a somersault.

“My brother.”

“Gray Son. You have been selected to die by the Court.”

They look down on him, the men and women in masks, taunting him from the rafters. Their white masks shine in the moonlight – the moonlight that comes in from one small tower window. That window overlooks the Saint Michael statue and Dick thinks.

“Who?”

“Who?”

“Who?”

The talon launches after Dick as he runs, sparing a thought only that hopefully, Maxie hadn’t drained the electric life from his sticks.

“Who? Who? Who?” the talon chants.

Then, he leaps at him a small dive that could be mistaken for a glide if this was open air, but instead, it’s Dick, ready for the fake out and he ducks, letting one of his escrimas spark and, like a taser, it shoots electricity right through the talon who isn’t quick enough to cover and he flies, no _falls_ , and then he lands.

Right on the blunt end of Saint Michael’s spear.

The chorus is silenced, the hooting of the owl gone. Instead, there’s only Gemini, her shape complete, that of a stunning Asian woman with swinging black hair and eyes like aquamarine gems, dressed in white scrubs.

“What is he?” she asks.

“My friend,” Dick responds, simply. “My…something,” he concludes.

He can’t say lover or boyfriend or any of those things. _They_ are nothing. But to Dick, well, Jason is _something_. Something more than an adopted brother, more than a friend. More than a partner-in-vigilante. Someone he could be with. Someone who is _all_ those things in one.

The revelation is smaller than he would have expected, given his vehemence that he was straight only a few hours ago. But Jason’s always gotten under his skin, from the first time he – in a fit of pique at Bruce – stole the kid away to Gotham’s boardwalk and fed him corndogs and cotton candy and watched a jaded young man become a boy. He’s known since that day he was in trouble, his heart stolen by a fourteen-year-old, even if he ignored and squashed the feeling so hard, he barely cried over his death and was more angry than relieved when he came back.

But like a diamond, eventually washed ashore as the water wears down the rock in which it was formed, it’s leaping up and showing itself to Dick.

“He’s… _Jason_.”

Gemini smiles. She takes his hand and leads him to the window, pointing out past the moon. Dick isn’t sure at first what she’s wanting him to see until she says, “Pluto, in conjunction with Jupiter.”

Then he peers, and with a quick switch on his mask, he can see the moon clearer, and seemingly behind it, Jupiter. Still smaller, what must be Pluto; a cold dead rock of an ex-planet, aligned with the gas giant.

He thinks someone like Bruce would appreciate the mysticism of it all a lot more than he does. But he thinks back to Gemini’s original horoscope and he recalls she mentioned opening his mind and finding his inner thoughts and fears and he thinks – strangely – she’s led him on a path of self-discovery. Because now that he knows, knows that something’s changed over these years, that Jason became more than his successor, more than a teammate and a partner. That deep down, Dick feared his own interest.

He tilts his head. He thinks he hears Jason, finally calling out and coming to find him, like a lost little robin who’s fallen out of his nest.

“Hey, I’m coming, Dickie! It’s alright. I won’t let you fight this alone.”

_Dick wakes up._

*

The night seems to drag on and still, Bruce never comes back to let him know if The Flash found anything or if any of his other tests have come back. Jason knows he doesn’t need the med lab computers to view the results; the main computer in the Cave will have the results.

He tries to ignore the sense of unease that builds in his gut. After an interminable amount of time, Jason gets up to relieve himself and splash water on his face. He stares at his face in the mirror; what looks back at him is a ghost.

Not literally, of course. Though Jason doubts very much he’ll be surprised if he does ever see a real ghost. It’ll probably be Spectre or Deadman, frankly. But that’s apocalyptic stuff, if any of the mystics turn to Red Hood, gangster of Gotham.

Jason looks pale, though, if not as bad as Dick. He too has big purple circles under his eyes. Even his curls and the white tuft look flat. He’s only twenty-four, but sometimes he swears he looks at least ten years older. Roy jokes about it, but he’s one to talk; the only person’s bags bigger than Roy’s are Tim’s – and it’s probably for the same reason. Although Roy at least has a kid to use as an excuse for them.

He’s startled out the vague consideration of his face – and any lengthy self-loathing feelings that might have surfaced if he’d been left too long – by Dick once more calling out his name.

“Red Hood.”

He rushes back to Dick’s side, barely sparing a glance at the blinking red light of the camera watching them. Dick’s turned onto his back and his body is tense, like he’s ready to fight. His eyelids are flickering again.

“Hey, I’m here, Dickie,” he hears himself say. “It’s alright. I won’t let you fight this alone. I—” He quiets the words, voice clicking in his throat as he swallows them.

He swears Dick’s body loosens.

Jason takes a deep breath. Then, in a stern voice, filled with false bravado, he states, “Dick Grayson, if you do not wake up right now, I will never forgive you. I love you, you fucking spoiled golden boy. I’d rather have you alive and hate me for it, than stay like this and never know.”

There’s silence in the med lab, then the kick and hum of the AC kicking on, leaving it colder and hollow; Jason’s voice almost echoes. He doesn’t take the words back, though, dares Bruce to walk in right now, to pull Jason away from Dick. He prays Bruce won’t walk in and tell him Dick’s dying.

“’M partner. My brother,” Dick murmurs.

Dick’s words hit Jason like a stab to the heart. Not because he expected anything else. Not because Dick has ever shown him anything else. But the word brother, said in a certain tone, in a dream; it’s the final death knell of Jason’s hope.

Once more, he almost leaves, almost gives Dick back to Bruce because obviously – despite what he just said – Jason has no place in Dick’s life and it’s petty and mean-spirited and pathetic, for Jason to leave Dick like this all because he’s feeling torn asunder, hopes dashed.

But Dick flails his arm out and it catches Jason’s elbow – and he doesn’t let go.

“My everything,” he says, and when Jason looks back, he sees Dick’s eyes – ocean blue and sparkling once more – and life in his face, color in his skin and the gentlest, sweetest smile Jason could never have imagined on his face.

“Dick?” he asks, slack jawed.

“I hear—” Dick chokes off into a small coughing fit and Jason shakes himself, reluctantly pulling his sleeve from Dick’s grip to fill a cup with water, and then help Dick sit up and drink it.

Cup empty, Dick pushes his arm away and Jason starts to move back, but Dick stops him, two of his fingers resting lightly on Jason’s wrist and then – when Jason stops moving away – wrapping around it.

“A little bird told me you’ve been in love with me since you were fifteen.”

Jason sputters and without thinking he steps away, running his hands through his hair and then shoving them in his pockets. He knows his face is turning red. “You heard that?” he asks, both embarrassed and surprised.

Dick smiles at him. “Your freckles stand out more when you blush. I never noticed that.”

“Christ, Dickie,” Jason says, shifting his feet and proceeding to flush even more.

“I heard that, and more. What did you hear? It feels like I woke up from a nightmare.” Dick sighs and stretches out his legs. He rubs at his face, hands rather adorably rubbing at his eyes like a child waking up from a nap. “How long was I out? My suit feels disgusting. Here, help me get it down, will you?”

Dick might have just woken up, but it’s Jason who feels like he’s dreaming. Dick Grayson, asking him – Jason P Todd, low-life and rogue Bat family member extraordinaire – to help him out of his suit like that hasn’t been Jason’s fantasy since the first time he showed up with the blue finger stripe design.

He says nothing though, just walks back to the side of the table and stares at the back of Dick’s neck where the turtleneck meets his damp and curling fine baby hairs. Jason does his best to keep his hands from shaking as he lets his hands fall on Dick’s neck and to find the hidden notch that disabled the suit.

“This okay?” he asks, his voice strangely hushed. He doesn’t want to ruin the mood. Whatever subjunctive mood this is, filled with possibilities and ways to be and an ending that could take any shape. For a split moment, before he begins to move the zipper down, Jason lives in a liminal space; something between what Jason and Dick have been to what they might be. A space existing between Nightwing and Red Hood and _Dick and Jason_.

Then, on an exhale, he begins to lower that black zipper and with it, the tension breaks and Dick also breathes again, like he didn’t even realize he was holding it, and he turns his head the slightest inch to look at Jason and give him his typical Grayson smile – the one that promises fun and mischief and Jason is torn between watching it and his hands. He settles on his hands because Dick’s golden skin is slowly being revealed and while Jason’s seen it before, like this it’s a marvel of smoothness, marked by scars that are light with age, blending in if it were not for the raised and puckered skin of each. Otherwise, Dick’s back is perfect; not a mole or freckle in sight.

Something tugs at Jason and in a fit of boldness, he moves from the zipper, leaving it undone at the base of Dick’s back, and he skims his hands over the broad back, all his nerves alight as he touches. He brings them up to Dick’s shoulders and then he slowly pushes down at the sleeves, sliding them off Dick’s arms and he leans in, just enough, to whisper the ghost of a kiss on the spot where his neck and shoulder meet.

His actions are met with a quiet moan and Dick turns his head up and back, revealing more length of his neck for Jason to see, for him to want to worship. He’s almost instantly hard, but it’s a vague thought in the back of his head; the intimacy of the moment more prescient over the arousal in his body.

“Jason, I—” Dick pauses, then breaks the spell by turning to look Jason on, eye-to-eye, patting a space on the medical table beside him. Jason sits, pulling his hands back into himself.

Dick’s eyes turn kind and he reaches out, threading his slender fingers in between Jason’s, his other hand caressing the underside of Jason’s forearm. The soft touch leaves Jason reeling from its intensity.

“Jason, I don’t know what’s happened. I can guess, since we’re back in the Cave, you got me out of there. Whatever that gas was, I think I’ve been tripping balls.”

Jason can’t help the snort that wrenches out of him. Dick responds with his own light laugh.

“But I realized something in my sleep. It’s like I heard you, asking, and I found the answer.” He taps his chest. His now bare chest, nothing hiding his dusty-rose colored nipples and the sleek lines of his defined pectorals and biceps. His Adam’s apple bobs as he takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what I’m doing, little wing. I’ve never been with a guy. I’ve had some bad…experiences.”

Jason nods, watching the shadows flicker over Dick’s patrician features, darkening them for a fleeting instant.

“Did I say something about that?” Dick asks, clearly catching something in Jason’s own expression.

Jason chews his lip and then responds, “Yes.”

It’s Dick’s turn to nod, his gaze far away before coming back to Jason’s. The way he seems to melt when he looks at Jason has Jason’s heart taking a flying leap after his predecessor. He doesn’t even try to stop it.

“If it’s too much or not enough, anything, I understand, Jay. It’s a lot to take in.” He pauses and looks down, his shoulders drooping.

Jason can’t bear it, the look of defeat on Dick’s face. Robin doesn’t give up and Nightwing doesn’t give in. Like Jason doesn’t have trauma of his own. He stands once more and moves between Dick’s legs. Jason allows the urge to pet Dick’s hair, to cup the back of his head, overtake and guide him.

“Dick, we can move as slow as you want.”

“Even if we never have sex?” Dick asks, eyes looking up at Jason like a doe in headlights, beseechingly liquid.

Jason swallows. “Even if.” Jason will give up sex for Dick, it doesn’t matter.

Dick laughs. “Now I know you’re serious. Don’t worry, I might be new to it but—” his blue eyes do an obvious once over on Jason and, grungy as he feels from this hell night, he can’t help but preen and smirk a little, “I have plans for you.”

“Fuck, Dick,” Jason says, a hint of a whine in his voice. He presses his pelvis against the edge of the table, the pressure nice on his constricted cock. “As slow as you want. As often as you want. As much as you can or want to take.”

Dick’s eyes turn into vast whirlpools of blue and black desire as Jason talks and he can’t hold back anymore, he leans forward, pausing only when there’s barely a breath of space between them.

“Can I?” he asks, soft, reverent.

Dick looks up at him from under his lashes and seems to think. Jason wishes Dick were as vocal in real life about the thoughts in his head as he was under the influence of the toxin and his dreams. But then Dick is tilting his head an inch and closing the gap between them.

The press of their lips is divine: warm, gentle, filled with all of Jason’s aching longing for Dick and the hesitancy of a considered kiss for Dick. Jason tries not to be eager, to not force himself on Dick who has barely even warmed to the idea and only in the context of a rough night and spilled secrets. But Dick likes a challenge and he throws himself into anything head-first, so it’s Dick who parts his lips and coaxes Jason’s tongue out with his. It’s still gentle, though, slow. Nothing but slick, wet heat and learning how the other kisses.

There’s a noise behind them and Dick startles, pulling away. Jason doesn’t know but figures it’s Bruce coming in to check on them. The camera would have shown Dick awake and Batman will need to debrief Nightwing. He’s probably also annoyed by the casual make out.

Dick’s eyes widen, though, going round and anxious before he dips back in for what Jason thinks will be another kiss until he bypasses Jason’s mouth and goes for his ear instead.

“Do you remember why we went to Arkham?” he asks, lips barely moving, but enough for Jason’s trained ears to understand. He also understands the strained anxiety underlying his tone.

Jason wants to say yes, of course he does, but his mind suddenly goes blank. Dick doesn’t wait, anyway.

“They took him. Where are we, Jay? Who _is_ he?”

The words sink in, deep into Jason’s bones and he doesn’t know. Doesn’t know. It’s all a blur and—

He grabs Dick’s head and turns him just enough to kiss him again, burying all his hopes and yearning into the other man’s lips.

Jason wakes up.


	8. Alice's Adventure

Dick wakes up.

Dick wakes up.

_Dick wakes up._

_Dick wakes up._

_Madness designates the equinox between the vanity of night's hallucinations and the non-being of light's judgments._  
-Madness & Civilization, Michel Foucalt

**Author's Note:**

> Follow and chat with me [on tumblr](http://mf-luder-xf.tumblr.com) and/or [twitter](https://twitter.com/mf_luder_xf)!!


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